We're all gonna blow.....

For those of you who didn't know me in the 90's, I am huge Ani Difranco fan. I, once upon a time, looked like Bjork mated with Liz Phair and gave birth to Gwen Stefani, wore boots that made the military jealous and got my haircuts from Angry Dyke's R Us. This is not an insult to butch looking lesbians, but rather a compliment to my adoration of women who embraced the term, "Righteous Babe", didn't take any shit and screamed their way though the Alternative Grunge of my era. If I could get over my genetic fascination with guy genitalia, I would totally join my sisters in arms.

Previous to that, I went through my more feminine side of my feminist revolution. If you don't believe me, I can send you a photo...no, shit...there were moments when I looked like Boy George.

At the bright age of 19, I lived in the YMCA, which sounds like a groovin' place to be if you are one of the Village people, but trust me, when I say this, that there are much, much better places to live. Think scary spiders, think psycho weirdos, think this is the last place you ever, ever want your 19 year old to live. It wasn't the first time I was living in some pretty questionable circumstances and obviously it won't be the last, now that I am ghetto livin' for the second time in my fixer upper in what is supposed to be my family friendly home sweet home.

"You can't get through it , you can't get over it, you can't get around. Just like a dream. you'll open your mouth to scream and you won't make a sound..."

It's been another strange week. Relationship break-ups, more floods to other people's houses, heart attacks, bladder cancer, broken hips, pulled hamstrings....there isn't a person that I have talked to lately that has good news. Luckily, we are just dealing with Casa Cayendo...it's just a stupid, broken, flooded house, so all is well.

"Cause, I am not a pretty girl, that is not what i do. I ain't no damsel in distress and I don't need to be rescued. So put me down punk, maybe you'd prefer maiden fair, isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere...."

As easy as it was to go through my, "Punch me if you dare" exterior of the 90's, it's pretty tough to pull that shit with a house full of children that I am raising to have authentic selves, and that I have protected from the harsh upbringing that made me tough as nails and capable of taking the worst kind of crap that life can deal at you at any moment.

This is the hard part. As much as I can shut down and not feel (frankly, that's easy), it's difficult watching my kids reaction to what we are going through for the second time. My son, after finishing up the moving of the furniture, handed me five bucks out of his wallet and said,"I got it Mom, don't worry."

My daughter, cried her eyes out and asked me how we were ever going to fix this....again. I reminded her, that I started out with nothing, just the clothes on my back and a backpack. Now, I have a her and her brother and her sister, so everything else means nothing, it's just a whole bunch of shit that is easily replaced.

My oldest daughter has refrained from discussing our current situation with anyone, including her closest girlfriends. She is embarrassed and wants no pity from no one...have no idea where she gets this from. I brought home a clothing donation from a friend at work on Friday who was eager to offload some Lu-Lu Lemon sweatshirts and she responded with,"Really?! Now, people are sending us clothes out of pity?!".

It's a hard road to keep a stiff upper lip when you see your kids are struggling, even more when they see you struggling. As proud as I am that my boy has faith and wants to help out...I go from pride of realizing that my kids have the right stuff to feeling like a parent who has failed each and every one of them.

That's why its easier to just keep focusing on the positive. We've been fortunate with friends who have offered to pitch in, drop off dehumidifiers, heaters, wine and hugs....next door neighborhood dinners, hot tub weekends away, cookies on our doorstep and dump trailers. Just when you think you might be alone in this mortal coil, the universe does a pretty good job of reminding you that you are not far from the people that matter the most.

"I got friends all over this country. I got friends in other countries too. I got friends I haven't met yet, I got friends I never knew.

So it's pretty simple... I can invest energy in being pissed off, depressed and verklempt or I can just get on with things and get it done. When bad things happen, good things come out of the woodwork. We have been blessed with friends who have offered help, hugs and hands.

Research on the internet.... it's a wonderful thing. I have no idea why we didn't have a look at flooring options that would withstand the damage of a flood the first time around but like most of us, it's an ostrich in the sand approach to most of life's problems. That's why if you don't listen...to the universe, your higher power or a deity of choice they will slap you in the ass a second time until you get the message to wake the fuck up.

"I do it for the joy it brings, because I am a joyful girl, because the world owes me nothing and we owe each other the world. I do it because it's the least I can do, I do it because I learned it from you and I do it just because I want to."

The investment we make everyday matters. Hear me.....the giving we do everyday MATTERS. We all have those moments where we think, "What the fuck?! Why bother?! What' s the point?!".....even the best of us. I can guarantee that you will get back what you give, even Mother Theresa understood that,

It's about investing in the right relationships. Seriously, this is easy stuff and yet so many of us screw it up, including myself. I spent half of my life trying to fix the fucked up relationships that didn't have a hope in hell of being normal and yet, I tried. We assume that the relationships that matter are the ones that we entered into the world with, the ones we think will secure a future for us, the ones that we think are somehow good for us because of lust or greed or unrealistic expectations. But it's really pretty simple....it's the people we are responsible for, the people who genuinely love us back and the people that are worth the investment. Even more, it's just because...sometimes you get nothing back and that's okay...it's an investment in you.

"I was a long time coming, I'll be a long time gone. You've got your whole life to do something, and that's not very long. So, why don't you give me a call, when you're willing to fight, for what you think is real and for what you think is right."

I am going to fix this. My son's feeling of responsibility, my daughters despair and my oldest daughters embarrassment. They are the only relationships that matter to me the most at this moment. My job as a mother is to do the best work I can for my family, even if that means putting on a brave face, taking one for the team, gathering my big girl pants and sucking it up. It's not about what's happening to me but what I can do about making it not such a big deal. There are bigger dramas out there than a flooded basement.

"They say goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine, and the little plastic castle is a surprise every time. And it's hard to say of the're happy but they don't seem much to mind."

We are your average Canadian family and we owe our lives to the people that we love.........

Everything's Almost Free Today.......

The last time this happened I lost my job, my home became a hell for 68 days, my marriage was severely tested and so was my sanity. To get a grip, I sent myself to a powerless cottage in the woods, a meditation resort called Windhorse Farm where in Tom's Cabin, complete with sawdust outhouse and woodstove, I read Shambala magazines and prayed to a higher power to save me from myself.

This time, who knows? Anyone know an exorcist.....cause I'm feeling a little pukey.

We are $2800 from paying off our housing flood disaster of October 2011, after 2 years and 2 months of Austerity Measures living for a family of five.

And now, we are flooded...........again.

So the Austerity Measures we were hoping to continue living with to fix the bathroom that doesn't work, the decks that are falling off of our house, the patio door that will give you a hernia, the front door no one can open, the kitchen with the rotting cupboards and the windows which freeze from the inside are going to have to wait a little longer.

We get to replace the basement for the third time since moving in. The idea of looking at carpet samples and visions of my days ahead with a crow bar are making me nauseous.

There will be no retreat for me this time, that is, unless I entertain the crazy thoughts in my head by converting our shed in the backyard into a Looneybin recovery center, complete with a bottle of wine I got from Christmas for some liquid cheer which I was ironically saving for a "Rainy Day", my daughter's posters of the boys from One Direction so I can make fun of their hair, and the chemicals I need to start a friendly, neighborhood meth lab as a side job.

My mother-in-love was kind enough to remind me that everything happens for a reason. Right now, I've got some pretty nutty ideas of what that reason must be. Maybe my higher power hates me, or the house is cursed, or I didn't spend enough time reading The Secret in the last year.....or it could be the rain and a sump pump that stopped working when we lost our power in the middle of the night. Does everything have to be an Oprah aha moment? Fuck Oprah and her billions....its so easy to get lost in your existential self when you worry for nothing.....gah!!!

Resisting the urge to follow my greatest instinct, which is to "GTFO" as my daughter would anagram it, is my biggest challenge right now. I don't want to FEEL anything, I don't want to acknowledge that this is happening AGAIN, and I really think we would all be better off with a blow torch and a match right now.

Because I have bigger dreams for this family than just fixing our "Dream" home over and over to infinity and beyond. As good as the Austerity Measures have been, making us more financially accountable, creative and focused, I don't want to Extreme Coupon forever.

I refuse to go into thousands of dollars worth of debt again. So for now, its camping upstairs with furniture. A date with a crowbar and hammer to face in the days ahead. Two daughters displaced out of their bedrooms, my office furniture as well as everything else relocated to the space in between our dining room, living room, and everywhere in between, mattresses piled sky high in the hallway much to the cat's pleasure, work boots to wear for showering in the only working bathroom that's located downstairs and an uncertain future as to how to prevent this from ever happening again.

We're about to have the biggest garage sale this neighborhood's ever seen. "Our line of credit balance will not budge" is going to be my new mantra and this blog will need to be changed to,"Family Minimalism Measures", cause I WILL NOT go into a penny of debt this time.

Being so focused on our bottom line budgeting in the last two years can be a positive thing. But here's the flip side....when looking at the spreadsheet of our life, you can get a little too caught up in the details of when things will get easier. Knowing that our last payment would be made in just a few short months....you can cling to the idea that when all the debt is gone, life will be good, the pressure will be off and the projects you really want to pursue can now be entertained.

There is a danger in that thinking, it's what gets so many of us into trouble. Its living in the future, not being present in the now, and obviously, hopelessly misguided, since the idea of being able to have some control over life's outcomes is unrealistic. Giving up is not an option, but thinking that somehow if I relentlessly pursue a goal, all will be well, throws a lot of monkey wrenches into other aspects of your life. The "when this happens, I will be happy" thinking is a dangerous place to live in your head.

So now what?

House sitting in the French countryside taking care of sheep, a reality show based on the five of us becoming Real Canadian Gypsy's, selling up and buying a houseboat to live on in the Caribbean, moving to Ecuador where the cost of living is cheap and I can start my own taco stand, packing up the car with suitcases, the kids and driving off into the sunset are all good options that I can't seem to let go of right now.

If I could get some sleep, maybe it will all go away and this is just a bad dream. Or maybe it won't. What I know for sure is that I will no longer put my dreams on hold for the sake of a house.

We are your Average Canadian Family and anybody need a four slice toaster, real cheap?